GO!
Food Poster - Swithun has made amazing posters for the food in the cafe. Some controverisal. Shall we hang them in the Cafe? Any in the Red Room (RR). RR trying to be sorted out, we're aiming to keep the window clear. Shannon's idea for RR will take a while to impliment.
Can we have little shots overhead so we can get portion sizes visually for volunteers. AP SWITH Overhead Shots. SWITH to hang up posters.

Food Preparation - Piotr. People not getting value for money. Too small portions. We're doing photos to solve the problem. Our attitude has changed and we're more open to the customers. Keep an eye on what people are making. Nix suggests volunteer day every month. We used to have building day, but it ended up too few people. Maybe not once a month. One-offs. We need one soon. AP - NIX and ALEX to make training video. Nix would like rent for facility if needed. £40 approved. This is a longer-termed project. AP BRYONY responsibly for making building day. We willl get together on next building day to see how each other makes food.

People not entering the kitchen - Thread on BB. Vollies only on shift should be in kitchen for sake of not seeming rude to customers by ignoring them while making their own stuff. Randoms regularly in the kitchen, vollies should chat to people outside of the kitchen. KMs discretion.
Piotr wants to make a boundary on the floor. Red line Ask Before You Enter. NIX AP

KM/Volunteer newsletter - Alex AP Responsible for making it happen.

Rota - AP Bryony to print new things on rota. Don't sign up for loads of shifts in a row. Commiting your time, please honour that commitment. Speak to KM if you can't sign up for full shift, signing in box for 2 hrs stops other.

Tiolet Rota - Sean and Shannon AP Toilets been good recently.

New Menu/Redesign - We haven't been able to find the old menu on any computer. Shannon and Alex doing a new one ourselves, people can do it more fancy if they want. Anyone have any huge issues with anything coming or going on the menu? Having another meeting, decide on BB AP Shannon.

Kitchen Functionality - This means nothing.

Tables and Chairs - Nix had 3 submissions for tables. People have before stated shouldn't be down to Nix about deciding painting of walls, tables etc. Things can be painted over if they are horrid. FoH issue.

New Breed of corkage dodgers, beware they're going clever - Be more aware. Empower volunteers to go up to people. Crack down on them! We need to do another sign explaining, very clearly, why we need corkage. AP Nix. Nix says alcoholics are alcoholics. Peckhams are £3.

How to deal with nasty sit/police/incident nos. - Police incident numbers are in the front of the Volunteer Contact book. Let's start a new Volunteer Book. AP - Get a book + transfer numbers - ALEX and BRYONY.

NM closing list - People still aren't doing it. Only person who's signed up recently for third section, staying behind, is Blue, no-one else. Nix AP to talk to other people who are staying behind. NMs should feel empowered that they can say no to people staying behind. Nix thinks signing sheet, box for name for people staying behind should be bigger - ALEX AP. ALEX AP to write a speech for NMs should they want to read it out. Shannon says keys shouldn't be handed over to people when they are drunk or otherwise. It's all about personal responsibility, we're all responsible for the space.

What you can have sign - This is important because we need to be aware of our profit margin, it's really tight with stuff like cakes because it's profit low, and sushi because it's easy to pick at. Don't devour fancy salad, they're expensive and vanish quickly. Be aware of stock? AP - ALEX + NIX to make the sign.

Drum kit - Nix says we need new snare and other stuff, £100. Shannon is SHOCKED it went so quickly, a month after we bought the last one. Nix re-proposes that we don't spend £100. £50 may be cool. Shannon says we need a more secure system. Nix says this system is to make it neat and amazing. AP - BRYONY to get in touch with people who let us borrow their drum kit in-case they took the snare.

Vollie Party - Bryony thought it stunk and was self-indulgent and not a volunteer party at all. There was no opportunity to talk to people etc. Volunteer parties should be inclusive, we've learned our lesson. Alex defends that it was accepted at the Working Group meeting and discussed on the BB. AP - BRYONY and SASKA to organise vollie party.

When syphilis first came to Europe, the symptoms were obvious and they quickly inhibited the spread of the disease. Who would want to have sex with someone so disfigured? But instead of dying out, the disease changed its symptoms, so there were no outward signs that someone was infected.

The people who stay behind are the same. It used to be that they didn't help. Now the smart ones have learned to do the minimum so you can't use this to keep them out. We got stricter on who could lock up. So they became Night Managers and say that it is OK for them to lock up.

But hanging out after hours when you haven't been working in the kitchen or on FWG business is still the disease. The security of the building is clearly important. But who the workers want to hang out with is also important. It goes beyond the haze of a drunken hour, and can put people off from working altogether.

re: building day --- when and why? If you tell me these details i will work on helping to promote it.

Re: vollie party: be careful what you call self-indulgent. I have the feeling lately that some members of the forest are keen to disapprove of things which they do not understand or like. beware the tragedy of the lowest common denominator. a wide variety of events is necessary for our sustainability and credibility both among volunteers and the outside world. I would rather volunteers came to a party that they thought was horrible in an interesting way than a typically tepid affair. I think, knowingly or not, the volunteers respect us for this - even when we upset them. i feel an event that tries something difficult to achieve is glorious even in it's failure. For the record, however, i know a few volunteers who thought the volunteer party was the most exciting and dynamic thing they had seen in the forest for a long time.

I do think our event policy / ethos needs to be re-examined along with our attitudes less our events programme becomes as luke-warm and milky as tea.

re: toilets - can we really say they have been "good". I might notch them up to better but "good?"

re: tables - we need higher tables and chairs in the cafe. there are loads in the hall. I will throw away a couch this week. Ha ha!

re corkage: lots of people are removing sold tape from other bottles / candles and also things that we use sold tape to post up. we should not be using the sold tape for anything other than bottles.

re snare: i am ok with getting another one but what happened to the last one? did nick say?

sorry i missed the meeting. sorry for the small rant. sounds like things were productive. let me know when building days / vollie parties are and i'll help with getting the word out.

I suppose the thing to do is remove empty cans and bottles from tables quickly. Usually we get customers to tidy up after themselves or wait until they are gone. But with empty cans with tape on them, it is like leaving Forest money on the tables.

Building day hasn't been decided. There was a proposal for a monthly vollie intro/building day and instead we decided we should do another one off thing, like the last couple, which were very successful. It will most likely be tied into painting of floors downstairs. And hot water downstairs??

Regarding accessibility on events: I think the gist of things was that it was a great event, but not suitable for a vollie party. The idea behind vollie parties has been to bring together and say thanks to all the different people who have been working hard. A lot of these people don't necessarily know each other and it's a good chance to meet new folks and just enjoy the space without anyone having to be responsible for punters, etc. I wasn't at the vollie party in question, but the argument was that it didn't really fill these criteria.

We discussed the problem of the tape. I bought a tape dispenser a couple of months ago to avoid the sold tape being used for other things. It is already broken. Argh.

No one seems to know what happened to the last snare. One idea floating around was that the guy who lent us his drum kit for long long time took the new snare with him when he picked up his kit. I don't know how true this is. I voiced concern over buying more equipment to replace stolen stuff if there was no system in place to make sure it stays put. There still seems to be no system, but it also seems unrealistic not to have a full kit...

does our insurance cover things like snares being stolen? Or would the regularity of its occurance just bump up the premium?
I thought having the cave users list would have stopped this happening. Such a shame.

This discussion about the volunteer party makes me sad. I wasn't there but from everything I have heard it was what I love about the forest. Many people have told me I should have been there, it was amazing.

Sometimes it is good to show our volunteers our ways of weird. Sometimes it is better for them than just having a quiet space at a party where they can talk and meet people and listen to bongos. Maybe not every time, but there is a place for edge and insanity and outthere. It is really fucking important for a volunteer to see that the forest is a place where there is the opportunity for that. We should be inclusive of freakouts too. When I first started it was the that which drew me in, not the mundane. Even if these things aren't pulled off perfectly it's affirming that they exist, rather than the safe option. Bring us silk and KLF albums on loud repeat and chopping off the fingers of the spanish under strobe light please. We keep on talking of openness and inclusvity at the moment, but if inclusivity is the lowest common denominator of not offending anyone then that is boring to me and not inclusive of us weird ones. When I first started volunteering I didn't want to get involved in things because it seemed really open and easy, sitting in beanscene is open and easy, I wanted to get involved because the people seemed really fucking cool, and what was going on seemed exciting. Please let's not forget this. When we try to pander to everyone we lose what is exciting and visionary about our space. Okay, Bryony organise the next one and make it different, but don't forget that your vision for a volunteer party is only one vision (like the queen song) and there are many months to the year, we can make space for the alternatives too.
xxxxx

0 x

"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Yay. "Self-indulgent" is a nasty word (or two words, depending on your hyphenation tendencies). You know, it is sometimes ok to indulge ourselves. That's part of the payoff for giving all your hours for free. And it's part of what the forest is for, to indulge OUR ideas and dreams and whatnot. It's certainly more fun than indulging other people's.

xxx

0 x

"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

I appreciate everyone's points and agree with a lot of them. However it was really important to voice the opinion of those extremely hard working and dedicated volunteers who were left feeling sad and unappreciated after the last party. It wasn't just me by any means.

I don't want the volunteer party to be 'my vision', exciting ideas from all of you amazing people are most welcome. In fact they are requested.

Okay,
self-indulgence is only a dirty word in the best sense of that phrase.
What was key for me and might have been overlooked is that by design, the party was meant to be super inclusive, hence all instruments being decentralised.
Better yet, such was the set-up, that it allowed for non-musicians to play an equal part in its creation.
I thought it top!

'Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time.
But all the people can't be all right all the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,"
I said that.'
Bob Dylan Talking World War III Blues

Ok, I couldn't hear anyone or see anyone. The cafe wasn't closed so at least half of the participants were randoms. People were having to work in the kitchen. By 11 there was hardly anyone left. I had to work the next day and apologise profusely as the room used for a creche on Sundays was full to the brim with severed dolls head and a complete tip.

As an event it was cool, different, experimental.

Let's just agree to disagree, don't think discussing this is getting us anywhere.